


Charlie Offed Himself

by Masterofkarate



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Harm, Substance Abuse, Suicide Attempt, for self harm/suicide/depression type shit, just like lots of trigger warnings, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 01:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16714267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterofkarate/pseuds/Masterofkarate
Summary: (he didn't off himself)but he lowkey may have tried. frank finds charlie passed out and he'd self harmed and Frank thinks Charlie may be dead so he calls up Mac.This does not seem like a fitting fic for sunny but it just kind of happened and I'm very sorry about it????





	Charlie Offed Himself

**Author's Note:**

> idk this all happened within the span of like 1-2 hours and it's very sad and i'm very sorry that i've written something sad. please don't read if you're not in a place to read something like this!

The whole gang, minus Charlie, was at the bar, trying to reorganize all of the furniture because Dennis read something about feng shui and was bored enough to convince everybody to try it. Frank was moving a table when he threw his back out, so he went home to get a heating pad or pain pills or something that nobody listened to.

Dee was rearranging the bar stools while Mac was on his hands and knees, Dennis standing on his back to rearrange a sign on the wall. Despite being in a somewhat dangerous position, Mac answered his phone when it started to ring.

“Hey man, is this important?” Mac said, now only supporting himself and Dennis with one hand on the floor instead of two, Dennis had to hold his hands out to his sides to balance himself.

“Charlie! It’s Charlie!” Frank screamed on the other side of the phone.

“What’s going on?” Dennis asked, he could hear screaming, he hopped off of Mac’s back.

“No, it’s Mac, you senile old man!” Mac yelled back at Frank.

“No, Mac, Charlie! You gotta get over here! I think the kid’s dead!” Frank was in hysterics.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mac asked, jumping to his feet. He could feel his own heart starting to race. He couldn’t get hysterical, he definitely couldn’t trust whatever Frank was saying anyway. You could never really trust Frank. But he wasn’t usually this good of an actor.

“He’s donzo, Mac! Dead as a doornail! Offed himself!” 

“What the hell is happening?” Dennis interrupted.

“Call a goddamn ambulance, Frank!” Mac shouted at him, holding up a hand to silence Dennis, which infuriated Dennis.

Dee finally turned away from the bar to look at the guys, trying to figure out for herself what had happened.

“I can’t call an ambulance! No fucking way! You know how much illegal shit I got in this apartment?”

“Damn it, Frank! I’m on my way!” Mac hung the phone up, shoving it violently into his pocket. 

“What was that?” Dennis asked, following Mac as Mac started to storm out of the bar.

“Where are you guys coming? I’m coming!” Dee shouted.

“Stay out of this, bird!” Mac spat, whipping his head back to look at Dee. 

“Don’t nose your way in, Dee!” Dennis reiterated.

“You’re nosing your way in too!” 

“Tell me what’s going on, man!” Dennis insisted.

Mac opened the door of the bar without a word, Dennis followed behind.

“C’mon, what are you freaking out about?”

“It’s Charlie!” Mac shouted.

“Is he okay?”

“No, Frank said he killed himself!”

“No he didn’t!” Dennis argued immediately. “He doesn’t have the balls!”

Mac stopped walking and turned to face Dennis. 

“Stay at the bar! I’ll call you when I figure out what’s going on, okay? Just stay here, leave me the hell alone!”

Dennis blinked and furrowed his brows. Mac never didn’t want Dennis to come along. Mac never yelled at Dennis like that.

Mac didn’t wait for a response. He just started fast-walking again enroute to to Charlie and Frank’s apartment. Dennis, surprisingly, didn’t follow. Mac didn’t look back either. He walked quickly the whole way, breaking out into a sprint when he rounded the corner of their street, finally seeing Charlie and Frank’s building.

He raced into the doors and up the stairs. Frank was sitting on the ground in the hallway, leaning against the wall. If Mac didn’t know Frank, he would have assumed he was just another tweaker who hung out in the building. Frank was hitting the back of his head against the wall, staring into space.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Mac asked as he approached Frank, breath heavy. Even though he was fit as fuck now, that was a long and quick walk. 

“I came home and I walked in and Charlie’s there, on the bed, and he’s not responding, and there’s blood! Lots of blood, Mac! I think he’s a goner!”

“And you couldn’t call a fucking ambulance? He could be dead because of you, Frank!” 

“Keep your voice down, c’mon, man, I need your help! If we can move him or something we can call an ambulance! I couldn’t move him on my own!” 

“Fuck, okay, come on inside with me,” Mac huffed.

“I can’t go in there again! I can’t face it! Charlie! Charlie!” Frank was in hysterics again.

“Shut the fuck up, wait out here,” Mac said with gritted teeth.

Without hesitation, he swung open the door to the small apartment. You would never know it was the middle of the day going in there. The curtains were drawn to make the room dark with no internal lights on. The futon was pulled out of the couch. The sheets and blankets were thrown about, Charlie in the middle of the bed, curled up in a tight ball bare of blankets. He was in a ratty tshirt and his stupid long johns, but no blood to speak of so far. That was a good sign. Maybe Frank was really a senile old man. 

“Charlie?” Mac called quietly, he walked over to the opposite side of the bed, so he’d be in front of where Charlie was facing. He walked carefully, stepping over beer bottles and buckets of piss and whatever the fuck else. The apartment was much worse than usual.

“Charlie?” Mac said again. He crouched in front of the futon at eye-level with Charlie. 

First, he saw the signature ring of silver around Charlie’s nose and mouth. Second, he saw the blood Frank was talking about, but immediately knew Charlie wasn’t a goner. He’d seen this before. Whenever he couldn’t get high or drunk for whatever reason and he was feeling a whole lot of feelings, Charlie would cut himself. Mac had walked in on Charlie curled up in bed with blood on his arms before. They never really talked about it. Maybe a better friend would have. Mac didn’t, though. He would help Charlie clean up, they’d lay together, and then things would be better the next morning.

Mac hadn’t seen Charlie like that since high school. He’d seen occasional new scratches or burn marks or scars, but he never mentioned that either. Their friendship had a pretty strong don’t ask, don’t tell policy when it came to anything serious.

Charlie still hadn’t stirred and now Mac was worrying. Maybe the blood wasn’t enough to kill Charlie, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do something else stupid. Like take too many pills or drink the wrong amount of bleach. He remembered when he suggested faking their own deaths, Charlie’s relief  _ I was hoping you would say that.  _ He didn’t know of any jams that Charlie was in, but he knew Charlie always had a lot of emotions going on inside his complicated brain. How many warning signs were too many to ignore before you were a shitty friend?

“C’mon, man, Charlie!” Mac said a little louder, reaching out to shake Charlie.

Charlie’s face twitched and he groaned quietly.

Thank you God, thank fucking God, he wasn’t dead. Mac felt relief rush over his whole body. He shook Charlie a little harder and spoke louder, “Charlie! Wake up!”

Charlie groaned and rolled to his back, extending his legs out and flinging his arm over his eyes.

“Charlie!” Mac repeated.

“What?” Charlie shouted, flinging his arm away from his face, sitting up like his spine was attached to a spring. He shouted, “I’m up! What do you want? Why are you here?”

“What the fuck’s going on?” Mac asked softly, staying crouched by the bed, watching Charlie. “Frank thought you were dead.”

“Well not yet!” Charlie said, whipping his neck to look at Mac with wild eyes. “Why are you here? Go back to the bar!”

“Why are you wigging out, Charlie? I was worried!”

“You weren’t worried for shit! You’re probably here ‘cause Frank made you ‘cause Frank didn’t wanna be the one to find me! He didn’t wanna go to jail for killing me if I was dead!”

“Well..” Mac paused. Charlie wasn’t exactly on the ball, but he wasn’t too far off. Charlie was really good at understanding his friend and it always blew Mac away. “No, no, Charlie. I’m here because Frank was scared. I was scared, Charlie.”

“Well don’t be,” Charlie huffed. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs and placing his chin on his knees. “I’m alive, I guess.”

“You guess? Did you try to kill yourself?”

“What’s it matter, dude? I’m not dead, am I?”  
“It matters because that’s the stupidest shit you could pull!”

“What’s stupid about killing myself? It’d probably be the only smart thing I’ve ever done like ever!” 

“Don’t be an asshole, Charlie, that’s not true!”

“Why not? I’m an asshole apparently, so-”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!”

“Just leave me alone!” Charlie shouted.

“I’m not leaving,” Mac whispered. 

“Why not?”

“Because if I leave and you off yourself, I’ll never forgive you or myself. You can’t die on me, Charlie.”

“What’s it matter? You have Dennis, and your new dad, Frank. Why do you need me?”

“I don’t  _ need  _ you, Charlie, I want you around. You’re my best friend. You’re my first friend. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’re the only one who’d care,” Charlie grumbled.

“I highly doubt it, man. Frank was freaking out when he called, he probably still is freaking out. Remember when he just thought you died? He carried around that weird doll of you. Do you want him finding that website I got the Dennis doll from and carrying a you that looks like that around?”

“I don’t care, man.” Charlie sighed and then in a flash of jagged, rough movements, flopped down on the bed and rolled onto his stomach, burying his face into mattress.

“Okay,” Mac sighed. “I’m gonna go tell Frank that you’re alive and to fuck off. And then I’m gonna come back in and I’m not leaving until you talk.”

Charlie mumbled something against the mattress. Mac almost asked him to repeat it, but decided it wasn’t worth it. He walked into the hallway and told Frank that Charlie was fine and that he wanted some time alone with him. Frank freaked out, he insisted on peeking in to see Charlie. Mac allowed it, but shoved Frank into the hallway as soon as Frank started screaming Charlie’s name in relief when he saw he was in a different position. 

Mac pushed Frank out of the room and closed the door behind him. He told him that Charlie was emotionally fucked up and that Mac sort of remembered how to deal with it. Frank complained that his back still hurt, but Mac said that wasn’t his problem and went inside, locking the door behind him.

“Charlie,” Mac said quietly. He crossed the room and opened the curtains. “You can’t lay around like this all day. If you’re not gonna sit here and talk to me, you’re going to get the fuck out of bed and stop pitying yourself.”

Charlie grunted, not raising his head to notice the light streaming in.

“Fine,” Mac huffed. “Lay there like that all you want. I’m going to clean up. No wonder you feel like shit, you live like shit.”

Charlie let out another sound that may have been words. Mac ignored them. If he couldn’t get Charlie to talk, he’d do something to help him feel better. There’s no way anybody could be happy living in such a filthy house. The first, and easiest part, was the trash. Mac got a trash bag and collected all of the bottles and wrappers and tissues. It took three trash bags that Mac lined up in front of the door. Then he emptied the bucket of piss out the window, unable to keep from gagging as he did so. Then he used Charlie’s sink, which released rust-colored water, to half-rinse off the pots and pans.

Mac paid no attention to Charlie, although he couldn’t help but notice that Charlie first rolled onto his back. Then he sat up, knees curled back up to his chest. His eyes were open and he was silently watching Mac in a haze. 

When the apartment was almost clean (actually, it was still disgusting, but it was on an almost-liveable level now), Mac turned to Charlie and crossed his arms. He wasn’t angry. Maybe frustrated, but not angry. He wanted Charlie to know he meant business. That he wasn’t just going to abandon Charlie like this.

“Ready to talk?” 

“Not really,” Charlie answered, eyes immediately darting away from Mac. 

“Well I’m done stalling,” Mac said. He rubbed his hands on his pants (because that was a better option than washing them in the rust-water) and moved to sit on the foot of the bed. He kept his distance from Charlie, knowing how Charlie was with touching. Sometimes he needed it, sometimes he hated it. Mac didn’t want to assume which it was right now.

“What’s there to talk about?” Charlie asked, he looked up at Mac and smiled. But Charlie had always been really bad at acting. His eyes had a dead look in them. Almost like Dennis’ did sometimes. Charlie continued, “I got high, got sad, and now I’m good.”

“Don’t lie to me, man, I’m your best friend.”

Charlie sighed and looked away from Mac. He picked gently at the scabbed blood on his arm.

“Stop that!” Mac chastised. “You’re gonna get infected.”

“It’s fine, dude, not even deep.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mac sighed. “You have to have a first aid kit, somewhere, right? I mean you and Frank are always doing dangerous shit.”

“There’s some rubbing alcohol in the kitchen,” Charlie shrugged.

Usually Mac would have made fun of Charlie for calling it a kitchen, but not today. Mac got up and shuffled around the small area before finding rubbing alcohol. He looked around for something like a napkin, but he ended up taking a t-shirt off the floor and smell-testing it. It passed, so he joined Charlie on the bed again, sitting next to him.

“Let me see your arm,” he whispered, pouring some rubbing alcohol on the t-shirt.

Charlie extended his arm out for Mac to see. He looked at the other side of the room, as if he didn’t even know what was happening. Mac noticed that Charlie’s cuts were not too deep, just like Charlie said, but there were a lot of them this time. Mac wondered if they were all from today or if this was a habit again. Charlie flinched when Mac gently held Charlie’s arm. Mac could tell it wasn’t out of pain.

“It’s okay, Charlie, it might sting a little, but you’re okay,” Mac whispered. He gently dabbed the wet cloth on Charlie’s skin. He mostly just wiped away the dry blood and dabbed at the skin. 

Charlie hissed at the feeling, but other than that did not protest. When Mac was doen, he let go of Charlie’s arm, but Charlie let it fall into Mac’s lap. Charlie leaned slightly in towards Mac as well. Mac took this as a good sign. 

“What’s going on, buddy? What happened?” Mac whispered.

“Nothing,” Charlie mumbled. He didn’t move. He was rigid and tense.

“Well nobody fucks up their arm and talks about killing themselves for nothing.”

“I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yuh-huh,” Charlie answered. He pulled his arm back, crossing his arms. “Nothing happened, nothing ever happens. Nothing good. I’m doing the same dumb shit I’ve been doing for half my life and I hate it. I hate all of it.”

“What do you mean? You love your life.”

“No I don’t! I don’t have any friends, I don’t know shit, I hate my life and I hate myself.”

“Charlie,” Mac sighed. “You have friends. Me and Frank and the gang, we’re all your friends.”

“Yeah, but you have Dennis and Dennis has himself and Frank’s your dad now even though he’s actually my dad and Dee is a dick.”

“Frank’s not my dad,” Mac whispered. “And yeah, Dennis is my friend, but he’s not you. Nobody will ever be you.”

“Yeah, nobody wants to be me.”

“Charlie, stop with the self-pity, if you hate your life so much, change something.”

And then Charlie started to cry. Mac doesn’t remember the last time he saw Charlie cry. Like Mac, Charlie usually defaulted to anger and fighting. But not this time. He was crying. And it wasn’t for attention, Mac could tell. It was like he was doing all of the crying for the past twenty-odd years right here and now. It started with a deep breath and a screeching exhale. And then it was sobs almost immediately afterwards. Sobs that shook Charlie’s shoulders and made his face red and echoed through the room.

Mac didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say. He felt completely helpless. He put an arm around Charlie and Charlie didn’t flinch away, so he pulled Charlie in to his chest. He started to rub Charlie’s back and whisper nice things. Whatever he could think of.  _ You’re okay. I’ve got you. I’m here. I love you. It’s okay. Let it out. _ Just whatever you hear other people say when somebody’s crying.

It stopped as suddenly as it started. Charlie tugged away from Mac’s hold and wiped his face up and down, trying to rub the tears and snot away. Mac’s arms felt empty.

“Sorry man,” Charlie said, shaking his head. “I just… I don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Mac answered. He didn’t know what he should say.

“Let’s just get high and forget about it.” Charlie suggested.

“How about we lay down for a little?” Mac suggested. Usually Charlie could talk anybody into getting high, but for once in his life, Mac wanted to do the healthier thing. He didn’t want to end up being the shitty friend who was too late to help Charlie.

“Whatever,” Charlie said. 

Mac stood up and collected the pillows and blankets that were on the floor. He set the pillows up. When Charlie laid down, Mac covered him in blankets before joining him in bed. They were facing each other, Mac put his arm over Charlie’s waist.

“I’m sorry you feel like shit, Charlie,” Mac whispered, closing his eyes and placing his chin on the top of Charlie’s head. “And I’m sorry I don’t know how to help.”

“I’m sorry I feel like shit too,” Charlie whispered.

“Listen, next time you want to do some dumb shit, call me, okay? We can talk about it or like watch a movie or throw empty beer bottles at a wall in an alley, I don’t care. We’ll do whatever you need.”

“Thanks man,” Charlie said. It was half-hearted, though. Mac knew Charlie probably wouldn’t take him up on the offer.

“I mean it,” Mac said more firmly.

“I know,” Charlie answered, a crack in his voice. Mac thought Charlie might cry again, but he didn’t.

“I love you, man. I don’t want you to die.”

“I love you too.”

Mac hugged Charlie tighter. He was a little bit afraid of hurting Charlie, that’s how hard he hugged him. But he needed Charlie to know he meant it. Charlie had been there his whole life, he couldn’t go the whole rest of his life without him. Maybe he should have noticed Charlie was sad earlier, maybe he should have said something earlier, but he was hoping it wasn’t too late. Hopefully it’s never too late to be a good friend.

**Author's Note:**

> hey please don't clean wounds with rubbing alcohol and dirty clothes!
> 
> also i never write anything like this and i usually don't read it and idk if this is the norm but on the real here's the suicide hotline.  
> 1-800-273-8255


End file.
